The invention relates to a microwave component having an aerial comprised of a planar electrically conducting radiating element, arranged on a surface of a dielectric substrate, whose opposite bearing surface is at least partially covered with an electrically conducting layer, serving as a ground plane, and having a microwave circuit for processing and/or producing aerial signals.
Automatic transport or manufacturing systems utilize, for the identification of moving units (for example pallets, products), identification systems consisting of a microwave component, emitting an identification signal which is received by an evaluation unit. The received signals are evaluated in the evaluation unit and the moving unit is controlled in dependence on these signals. Such a microwave component comprises, as stated above, an aerial and a microwave circuit which reads the identification signals to be transferred from a memory and conveys them to the aerial. In some systems it is also customary to load the memory with always new identification signals, depending on the requirements. The new identification signals received by the aerial are further processed in the microwave circuit.
The aerial of such a microwave component has a substrate, which is connected to a metallized baseplate. The radiating element is situated on the surface opposite the baseplate. The thickness of the substrate depends on the desired intensity of the electromagnetic wave to be radiated and on the required frequency bandwidth. The microwave circuit of the microwave component is comprised of strip line elements and electronic components. In practice, the object is to obtain microwave circuits of the smallest possible dimensions. Therefore, strip lines of narrow widths are used, which are applied to a dielectric base material and whose thickness is much less than that of the substrate. In addition, the dispersion of the electromagnetic waves in the microwave circuit is thereby reduced. In the prior art components, the connection between the aerial and the microwave circuit is provided by contact pins, which lead through the aerial substrate and connect the radiating element to the microwave circuit. This requires several soldering operations.